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Thursday, March 17, 2016

Singer Frank Sinatra
Jr. died Wednesday of cardiac arrest while on tour in Daytona Beach, Florida.
He was 72.

His real name was
Francis Wayne Sinatra — his father's full name is Francis Albert Sinatra — but
went professionally by Frank Sinatra Jr.

Sinatra Jr. was the
middle child of Sinatra and Nancy Barbato Sinatra, who was the elder Sinatra's
first wife and the mother of all three of his children.

Sinatra Jr.'s older
sister was Nancy Sinatra, who had a successful musical career of her own, and
his younger sister was TV producer Tina Sinatra.

He was born in
Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1943, just as his father's career was getting
started, and he would watch his dad become one of the most famous singers of
all time.

Sinatra Jr. got to
see many other storied performers like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Count
Basie.

"I saw all the
top stars perform," Sinatra Jr. told the AP in 2002.

Sinatra Jr. followed
his father into music as a teenager, eventually working for the senior Sinatra
as his musical director and conductor.

The elder Sinatra
died of a heart attack May 14, 1998, at 82.

When Sinatra Jr. was
19 in 1963, three men kidnapped him at gunpoint from a Lake Tahoe hotel. He was
returned safely after two days when his family paid $240,000 for his release.

Barry Keenan, a high
school friend of Nancy Sinatra, was arrested with the other two suspects,
Johnny Irwin and Joe Amsler, and convicted of conspiracy and kidnapping.

Keenan masterminded
the kidnapping, prosecutors said. He was sentenced to life plus 75 years in
prison, but was declared legally insane at the time of the crime, had his
sentence reduced and was paroled in 1968 after serving 4½ years.

Sinatra Jr. was
married in 1998, but divorced in 2000. He is survived by a son, Michael.